


Swords and ploughshares

by Lavode



Category: Bleach
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1487476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lavode/pseuds/Lavode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orihime wants to fight, she just doesn't want to fight. Chad tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swords and ploughshares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samuraiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/gifts).



> I tried to write a shippy fic, but it wouldn't cooperate. Set in the mangaverse, probably right before the time skip.

Walk home, then homework and laundry, then dinner. Sado liked his quiet evenings, but these days he never felt sure they would turn out to be quiet. Once he’d come home to find Ikkaku and Matsumoto on his sofa watching a boxing match, and the moment he opened the door they’d started demanding beer.

That wasn’t what he was most worried about, though. Part of his mind kept feeling for some sign that a hollow was approaching, some vague sense of wrongness - he might not be able to tell, at least not in time, but he couldn’t keep from pricking his ears a little as he crossed the street and turned right at the corner. If you knew monsters existed in the real world, you couldn’t be blamed for looking over your shoulder a little. Ichigo might not be able to deal with every hollow that appeared in Karakura on his own. Anyway, he shouldn’t have to.

He passed the footbridge, and leapt aside – something above him, behind –

“Hello, Sado-kun! Could you stand still for a second, so I can get a proper grip on your neck? My arm slipped when you jumped like that.”

“Inoue.” She was trying to bend his head back the way pro wrestlers did, and he let her, but that didn’t seem to be the result she wanted. “An armlock?” he suggested after a moment, hoping she might get down from his back.

“You’ll just pull free if I let you go now. You’re much stronger than me, so I had to take you by surprise.”

“My house is over there. Let me go home and put my books down.”

If he came right back, she said. And smiled.

***

They went to Urahara's place to train, because Sado didn’t want his neighbours to see him fighting with a girl a quarter of his size. She moved fast and with precision, but he was quick enough that most of her attacks missed him. The Shun Shun Rikka could move much faster, but they stayed in her hair. If those weren’t ordinary hair pins.

“You aren’t hitting me,” he said after a while.

“What?”

“You’re holding back.”

She considered, then nodded. “I’m sorry. I'll try harder.”

Her fists and feet still kept stopping just as they touched him. He tried to reassure her that she wouldn’t hurt him, but she shook her head and said that wasn’t fair. “You aren’t fighting back. I’ll hit you for real if you hit me. Is that okay, Sado-kun?”

It wasn’t.

“It’s not a fight if it’s one-sided.”

“It’s practice.”

“You haven’t really had any training in martial arts, have you? It’s… not fair.” The look on her face was the one Ichigo had had every time he'd decided to lay down his life for someone, soft and grim.

“Pretend you’re a hollow!” Urahara called from outside his house. “Just attack him with everything you’ve got – don’t give him a chance, just eat him alive!” He growled theatrically and bared his teeth at them, and Sado turned away in embarrassment. Inoue smiled, but she didn’t want to train any more that day.

  
***

“This is the Shinigami Wrestling Federation of Doom - live from Karakura! - and today we’re bringing you something really special as the destructive, unpredictable Princess Blood Avenger faces that guy who doesn’t talk in our first-ever pit match!”

The audience, consisting of Jinta and Ururu, cheered dutifully.

“’Pit match’ isn’t a real wrestling term, is it.”

“Shut up, they’re in a pit, aren’t they?”

Rukia punched Renji in the arm on general principle, then went back to sipping her tea. “Who picked her costume?”

“I think she dug it out of Urahara’s wardrobe.”

She grimaced. “I’m sorry I asked.”

Chad stood quietly at one end of the bottom of Urahara’s training pit while Orihime scowled and flexed her muscles and shouted threats at Jinta and Ururu, who made faces at her. Someone had painted an elaborate red-and-black pattern on her face, which didn’t really do much to make her look scary, and there was something that looked like plastic wings attached to the back of the fringed denim vest she had on. Before she’d finished, Tsubaki flew across the pit and struck Chad in the forehead.

“Ooh! The match hasn’t even started yet, and already there is foul play from Princess Blood Avenger!”

“That was Tsubaki, not her.” Although she probably had come up with the name.

“Another blow – the Avenger leaps into the air, but that other person, whatever his name is, catches her foot on his shield -“

Rukia cupped her hands around her mouth. “Orihime! Split the shield open with Tsubaki! You can heal him later!”

Orihime shouted and drove her fist into Chad’s shield arm with a thump.

“The audience wants blood, and Tsubaki seems to agree with them – he’s egging her on! Yeah, do it – come on, Avenger!”

“You can take him!”

Chad tried to lean out of the way, but he was a little too slow; Orihime’s foot caught him squarely in the stomach.

“Ooh, ouch! If that had hit him a little lower –“

Rukia saw Orihime's face. “Stop it, Renji, this isn’t funny.”

***

Inoue had jumped down, releasing her chokehold around his neck, and looked at the ground while Tsubaki cursed and smacked her over and over. Kuchiki had taken Abarai’s megaphone away, for which Sado was thankful. He wasn’t sure if Inoue wanted him to leave, but he settled for standing quietly where he was. Eventually she thanked them, with an attempted smile, and went home; he saw Kuchiki get up and follow her.

  
He was very surprised when she came to his house later that night, saying she owed him an apology for wasting his time. She still didn’t quite look at him. While he made tea she talked, hesitating at first, but then she seemed to know what she wanted to say.

“I can’t make up my mind. I want to be strong, like Rukia-chan and you, Sado-kun. I don’t want to weigh him down, or you.”

“That’s why I started training with Urahara. You did that, too.”

“Sado-kun, you said you made a promise, right? That you wouldn’t fight for yourself.”

He nodded, setting a steaming cup before her on the table.

“But you do fight.” He nodded again. “I want to do that, too. I want to protect us all, like you do, but I just don’t want to… hit anyone.”

Sado had been a bully as a child; he’d had to learn how to be gentle. He rubbed his arm and wondered if his old anger lived on in it somehow. If that was why he could fight. It was hard to know what to say; Inoue’s problem was the opposite.

“And that’s why I get…” she trailed off, holding her cup and looking down into it. They hadn’t talked about it, but he knew she’d spent a long time watching Ichigo fight, unable to help him. Or maybe to make herself help him. He guessed that she still spent a lot of time thinking about it.

“Hey, you’ve got bananas! I know a recipe for fried bananas that would go perfectly with this tea – give me five minutes!” Jumping up, she started poking around his tiny kitchen, hunting for something to cut the bananas on. Sado waited without much optimism - he’d tasted her culinary experiments before – but at least she was smiling again. And no one could say she was predictable.

***

The next day he saw her and Arisawa practice their karate in the school's basketball court. The fire in Arisawa always seemed to glow brighter when she was fighting, but she was calm, smiling as she grabbed Inoue’s arm and threw her. Inoue didn’t smile; she looked as angry as Sado had ever seen her. She kept lunging for the other girl's face and chest, but Arisawa moved backwards, avoiding or blocking and saying things like "here I am" and "no, here, I said" and "missed me". She always seemed protective of her friend, but maybe she wanted her to be a fighter. Because Inoue wanted it, if nothing else.

He waited for Inoue outside the girls’ locker room. She looked tired, but she smiled when she saw him.

  
“Do you have to fight? You have other powers. Healing powers.”

“I want to fight. Well, I want to want to. Tatsuki-chan said I bruised her hip just now.”

“You wouldn’t use Tsubaki against me yesterday.”

She looked sheepish. “I might hurt you.” Apparently bruising Arisawa was different.

“I’ll make a promise with you, okay, Sado-kun? I’ll try to fight like a hollow, all out, if you’ll hit me back like I’ve seen you do with Kurosaki-kun. Hinagiku and the others can handle it. Okay?”

“I’ll try,” he promised, and she smiled again.


End file.
